Bayern 1-3 Dortmund: Schweinsteiger tries to play deep, but Dortmund don’t let him play

February 27, 2011

The starting line-ups

Dortmund ended Bayern’s faint hopes of winning the Bundesliga with an impressive victory.

Louis van Gaal kept the same XI that started the midweek win over Inter. Luis Gustavo played at left-back, whilst Danijel Pranjic was in the centre of midfield.

Jurgen Klopp made one outfield change, welcoming back Neven Subotic in place of Felipe Santana, and also gave a debut to Mitchell Langerak in goal.

The first 20 minutes of this game were probably the most exciting of the European season so far, given the importance of the game. Dortmund went ahead on nine minutes when Lucas Barrios sidefooted home after Bastian Schweinsteiger was caught in possession, Bayern quickly equalised when Gustavo turned in a corner, then Nuri Sahin curled a wonderful shot into the corner to make it 1-2 after 18 minutes.

Open game

The frantic start to the game was helped by both sides’ commitment to attacking football. Often games like this are cagey early on, with both sides sitting back, playing on the counter and waiting for the other to make the first move. The openness made for a fantastic contest, with both sides playing high up the pitch.

Tactically, we had two 4-2-3-1s up against each other, a relatively common feature of European (and in particular, German) football this season. The two shapes were very different in practice, however. Bayern’s was based around width, with Arjen Robben hugging the touchline without the ball, and Frank Ribery staying reasonably wide and drifting deeper to collect the ball.

Dortmund’s two wide players played much narrower, coming inside early and attempting to combine with Barrios. They frequently got plenty of men into the box, and played a more direct form of football compared to Bayern’s patient passing game.

It’s not clear why he played in such a deep position. The average position diagram below shows that, in the first half, he was often level with his centre-backs. This could have been simply to provide an extra man at the back (Bayern’s centre-back partnership is far from established) or it could have been so he got more time on the ball. The former isn’t his strength, however, and the latter didn’t happen because Dortmund put a particular emphasis on closing him down when he got the ball. The first goal came when Bayern played the ball to Schweinsteiger, and Lewandowski and Kevin Grosskreutz immediately closed him down. Schweinsteiger completely missed the ball with his passing foot and the ball hit his standing leg – rebounding to Grosskreutz, who set up Barrios.

Schweinsteiger's average position (No 31) - image courtesy of http://www.bundesliga.de/en/

Dortmund pressure

That incident really summed up the game – Dortmund were putting pressure on Schweinsteiger which contributed to his poor display, but he still made basic errors. He was beaten in the air seemingly every time Barrios came in front of him – he only won 5 out of 14 challenges in the game, which for a central midfielder isn’t too bad, but for an auxiliary centre-back is a big problem.

Towards the end of the first half Schweinsteiger again found himself as the deepest defender when Bayern were facing a long free-kick from the Dortmund half – Schweinsteiger booted the ball against one of his teammates and then had to atone for the area by blocking the resulting shot with his face. This was a long way from the calm, intelligent passer we’d become used to.

Bayern keep ball deep

Schweinsteiger playing so deep meant that Bayern held the ball in non-threatening positions for too long. Often this isn’t a problem for them (and has become a key part of their game) but they were behind for 78 minutes of this game, and therefore needed to be playing the ball higher up the pitch. They finished with 70% of possession but too much of that was in deep positions – Schweinsteiger only completed two passes in the entire game to Thomas Mueller, for example. When Bayern had Mark van Bommel playing deep and Schweinsteiger had more license to go forward, those two would combine frequently.

Schweinsteiger’s deep role also meant that Bayern often found themselves outnumbered in midfield. When Muller moved forward he was picked up by the Dortmund centre-backs, leaving Pranjic on his own in the centre of midfield. When Barcelona used Sergio Busquets as a third centre-back against Atletico this season, they had Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta commanding the centre of midfield – Pranjic was hardly likely to do the same here, and whilst that problem wasn’t translated to the raw possession statistic, the nature of the possession wasn’t suitable for a game Bayern were losing from the 18th minute onwards.

Conclusion

From the sake of tactical innovation, it’s a shame Schweinsteiger played so poorly here. The modern ‘centre-half’ or ’sweeper’ will possibly be the next craze in football, but any manager watching Bayern’s use of Schweinsteiger here will be put off from trying it themselves.

None of this should detract from Dortmund’s performance. They were simply the better team – more organised without the ball, more direct with the ball, and fully deserving of the win. It wasn’t an overwhelmingly tactical win from their point of view, though – in this game, and in this season, they are simply a far better side than Bayern.

61 Responses to “ Bayern 1-3 Dortmund: Schweinsteiger tries to play deep, but Dortmund don’t let him play ”

Elis on February 27, 2011 at 12:26 pm

Great post as always! But Gustavo sidefooted the ball into the net, it wasen’t a header!

p3k on February 27, 2011 at 12:38 pm

Surely it would be better for Bayern if Pranjic played left back (faster, more agile – and actually a proper left back !!?!) and Guztavo occupied the deepest midfield role, allowing Schweinsteiger to play as if van Bommel never left?

Dortmund defended brilliantly towards the end with 2 banks of 4 with Lewandowski slightly ahead of them, usually doing a good job on Schweinsteiger. They completely deserved the victory and the Bundesliga title too. I wonder how long Mario Götze will go this, relatively, unnoticed by the football world.

Overmüllerd on February 27, 2011 at 12:44 pm

No, Pranjic is not a left back. He had a few great seasons as left winger, playing where Ribery does, he even managed to get 16 goals in one season(I think in Belgium?). He paid half of his transfer fee by himself wanting to force a move to Munich and became a regular when Diego Contento flopped and Andreas Ottl couldn’t pick up the slack for Mark Van Bommel.

p3k on February 27, 2011 at 1:14 pm

Surely more accustomed to that role than Luiz Gustavo will ever be?

Blipp on February 27, 2011 at 2:56 pm

Gustavo has played quite a few matches as a left back for Hoffenheim this season, so the position is not completely new to him. Still, Pranjic’s performances for Bayern as anything else than a left winger(ish) have been rather poor, so I have no clue what van Gaal was thinking here either.

It’s not much of a secret that Nuri Sahin is one of the integral elements of Dortmund’s play, so having Pranjic go up against him and Bender doesn’t seem like a smart move. Regardless of any tactical mistakes by the coach a player of Schweinsteiger’s pedigree has to do better than in this match though of course. Terrible outing from start to finish.

R.Mutt on February 27, 2011 at 6:58 pm

Through the years Pranjic has been pretty good as a left back for the Croatian national team, though.

I think that Gaal’s thinking was that he didnt want to risk gozte skinning pranjic on the left so he decided to use luis gustavo a more defensively sound player. I think regardless of of what ever gaal did they were going to lose, this is Dortmunds year. They are are a true breath of fresh air. They play good football, with good young players, and they win arsenal could learn a lesson or 2 from them.

Hey check out my blog its for avid football fans and people who like the more tactical side of the game.

Pranjic has not been a good left back for Croatia, except for the 4 match exception @ Euro 08(where he was the best LB of the tournament alongside Zhirkov). He’s fantastic going forward but is god awful with his defensive positioning. At Heerenveen, he usually played on the left of the midfield in a Dutch 4-3-3, so it makes sense that Van Gaal feels comfortable with the player at both CM or on the left (he clearly understands how to operate within Van Gaals system).
Also, Pranjic has been quite good at CDM for Bayern in the Champion’s League- the games vs Juventus and Man U come to mind.

Sebastian on February 27, 2011 at 1:34 pm

Great job by ZM!

Totally agree, Gustavo should play the van Bommel role enabling Schweinsteiger to be more offense. Gustavo’s stats show him to be good ballwinner (as also seen against Inter), he can play this role properly.

Van Gaal definitly made a mistake here! IMM the only reason for this might be that van Gaal wanted to see Gustavo to be up against Mario Götze.

I really enjoy this still unbelievable BvB-Season.

spursfan on February 27, 2011 at 12:42 pm

schweinsteiger.

Danish on February 27, 2011 at 12:52 pm

I’m wondering what Van Gaal could’ve done when he realized that Schweinsteiger was failing.

Why didn’t they start moving the ball via the fullbacks? With Dortmunds wingers playing so narrow, one would think that there would be room for the fullbacks to set up Robben and Ribery – or overlap and create 2-on-1s.

96Fan on February 27, 2011 at 1:18 pm

When Bayern possessed the ball, Dortmund’s wingers helped their fullbacks to double Robben and Ribery. If Bayern had played like you suggest, there would not have been a 2-on-1 but just a 2-on-2. This is not save enough for Bayern, because if you lose the ball in such a situation, a fast counter attack will follow. Especially Großkreutz is capable to run fast with the ball and to get in the back of Bayern’s defense.

Roberticus on February 27, 2011 at 4:07 pm

My exact thoughts… why didn’t Van Gaal exploit Dortmund’s narrowness?

He could have simply played Robben and Ribery on their respective strong foot; this combined with Gustavo (though I would’ve preferred Pranjic out wide) overlapping would have really streched the play.

The inverted winger tactic is very useful, but must it become set in stone.
ZM has already pointed out how having two inverted wingers can make a side predictable…
sometimes it is better to have at least one who stays wide.
Time and time again we saw Ribery slaloming inside into congested areas where Dortmund had a vertiable forest of defenders.
Only sides like Barcelona can get away with this due to the quality of their passing triangles meaning that lack of space is hardly a problem for them.
I’d love to see Robben play outside-left again,,, even if just in a few games

Roberticus on February 27, 2011 at 4:12 pm

Oh, and Lahm overlapping Ribery along the right flank… forgot to mention that.

matt on February 27, 2011 at 9:34 pm

I thought Robbery stayed wide until they received the ball, then began the cut inside. For me, this enabled Dortmund’s wingers to catch up and create the double team, which effectively silenced Bayern’s biggest threat. Had Robben played on the left, he might have gotten down the line quick enough to prevent that double team, and gone after the right back more intently. Isolated against Robben is one of the biggest matchup nightmares for a defender, and van Gaal should have exploited that more.

hwk on March 1, 2011 at 8:48 am

A German web page wrote that Ribery had four shots and four assist and that this were the highest stats in the Bayern team. Maybe he does not look spectacular anymore, but I won’t say he is bad.

Treter on February 27, 2011 at 12:53 pm

Great analysis. I’ve seen only the highlights on TV and observed that S’steiger found himself unusally often in center-back situations in the box, which he solved poorly. His performance was heavyly critizised on german tv, and it was also mentioned that the BVB commanded the midfield (which was strongly contradicted by LvG after the match).
But nobody mentioned that S’steiger was there not by accident during the flow of the game, but seems to be instructed to play so deep. That said, and Robben and Ribery both staying wide, It doesn’t take me by surprise that Pranjic and Mueller were outplayed in the middle of the park by a majority of Dortnund players

Jimbo on February 27, 2011 at 1:02 pm

I’m a bit disappointed that the article didn’t mention with a single sentence how good and clever Dortmund defended against Ribery and especially Robben, because IMO that was the key for Dortmund’s success.

Thisnameiscursed on February 27, 2011 at 1:46 pm

Barely clever defending, they did the same as Inter, two men on the wingers, one to prevent a run at the end of the pitch, other to prevent a run inside. Again, this could be oversome if a proper midfielder had been present to take the ball from Robbery and pass it center to Müller, leaving the two defenders on the flank and tiring them, but Pranjic was not up the task and Schweinie… well… yeah.

nkb on February 27, 2011 at 2:03 pm

I agree. Especially Großkreutz was incredible with his defensive work against Robben. Robben constantly found himself unable to do anything with the ball whenever he was in posession, circled oftentimes by three men. Not a single shot from him during the entire game, none of his passes led to a shot on goal either.

It puzzles me why van Gaal played Gustavo at left back instead of in midfield where he played so well against Inter.

hwk on February 27, 2011 at 2:20 pm

For me it was more a surprise that Pranjic played left back at Milan. coz he barely did it this season and van Gaal prefers him in the center. but it is true, Gustavo is more of a midfielder too. although at Bayern he usually played on the left.
maybe he shall learn more before he is moved into midfield or van Gaal sees him as the best left back he has so far..

Diverinho on February 27, 2011 at 1:12 pm

Thanks for this fantastic article! Comparing the formations with the Inter-Bayern game, it is appearant that Bayern stayed similarly wide, which in turn forced/invited Dortmund to play narrow. Though in a different nominal formation than Inter. There are two reasons imo that Dortmund did so much better than Inter: 1) They had in total the better and more creative midfield. 2) They put 10 players against the ball, and not just 7-8. So they had the 2-3 forward players against Schweinsteiger, as you pointed out. Inter could learn from this game for the CL return; if Leonardo manages to convince his forwards (Eto’o, Sneijder, …) to put in some extra shifts when out of possession.
Similar to the comments above I don’t get vGaal’s point of swapping Gustavo and Pranjic again. The taller and more robust Gustavo should have played as DM, in my opinion. Either way, a further problem I see in Bayer’s ultra-wide approach is that it makes it so easy for the opponent to isolate and double-up the wingers Robben and Ribery. That was already visible against Inter. If they every now and then played more narrow when receiving a ball, they’d be able to provoke freekicks from much more dangerous positions… and of course they’d have more passing options other than only back along the line to the fullback.

RESOPO on February 27, 2011 at 1:38 pm

I too find it strange that you don’t even mention how well Dortmund defended against Robben and Ribery, forcing both of the to run down the line and denying them any chance to run into the center of the field, by constalty playing 3 men against them.

chris on March 3, 2011 at 2:02 pm

yes, Dortmunds defence work was key to the game. I never saw Robben neutralized like this in any game before. Even the big names in Europe weren’t able to stop him like this.

Thisnameiscursed on February 27, 2011 at 1:48 pm

Great article, but there should’ve been mention of the fact that Bayern had played two games in 6 days before the match, one of them against the defending CL champions. Tiredness was the culprit here, perhaps especially in Schweini’s case, but even that wouldn’t have been an issue had van Gaal realized what squad rotation means.

SomeGuy on February 27, 2011 at 2:11 pm

Great post. Well done to Dortmund – their pace and movement was too much for the Bayern team to handle. And back-four were excellent.

I honestly don’t understand what Van Gaal is doing sometimes. Their two main center backs (Demichelis and Van Buyten) were too problematic and so he rightly shipped them off (well Buyten’s career is over really), but then he didn’t get adequate replacements. Gustavo showed he was excellent in controlling Sneijder in the Inter game in the middle, yet again he is moved to left-back?

He hasn’t used Pranjic effectively either. Pranjic seemed lost in midfield. His best spell for Bayern came when he was playing in place of Ribery on the left-wing putting in dangerous crosses (weak part of Ribery’s game I might add).

Tymo + Badstuber are just a bad combination – Badstuber is too error-prone…his tracking of Barrios for the first goal was just bad. Tymo has done ok as center-half but it’s clear that that is not a position for him yet van gaal still insists on playing him there. He would do much better helping out Schweini in midfield.

Breno is talented but he also makes mistakes now and then. They really need to buy a new quality center-back…I bet they’ll try for Subotic and maybe try to get Hummels back – but hopefully Dortmund don’t budge (even though I’m a Bayern fan).

Also yes the team did look tired. Dortmund just looked fresher + they had a younger squad. But full credit to them – I hope they continue to challenge Bayern for years to come

NiWa on February 28, 2011 at 9:17 am

Bayern’s doom was that aside of the tactical issues pointed out in the main article, two players in key positions (Schweinsteiger and Badstuber) had an off-game.

As for new signings:

Needed:
- CB (Hummels; For other good CB’s in the Bundesliga outside of Dortmund I personally really like Geromel from Cologne; Personally I also see Breno ahead of both Badstuber and Tymo in this position, really hope van Gaal will give him more playing time)
- left-back (Pranjic, Gustavo, Contento, Badstuber have all played this position and to be honest they’ve all had their good and bad games but none of them were even closely convincing enough in that position to lock it down for the future in one of Europe’s top 10 teams)
- back-up winger (ideally for both sides; e.g. Ilicevic if Kaiserslautern gets relegated, though Ekici could return from his loan and possibly cover as well, so could currently injured Olic)
- back-up striker (if Klose leaves it would only be currently injured Olic and Müller (who is stronger playing behind the striker) left that can play this)

Wishful thinking:
- Neuer

Nodrack on February 27, 2011 at 2:42 pm

You should not forget – with an average age of 22.7 this was the youngest Dortmund-team ever to play a match in club history. They still have their best days to come when the manager can pull the team together

“Jimbo on February 27, 2011 at 1:02 pm
I’m a bit disappointed that the article didn’t mention with a single sentence how good and clever Dortmund defended against Ribery and especially Robben, because IMO that was the key for Dortmund’s success.”

Spot on. Let’s not forget Dortmund won the game after all! Dortmunds success has come through technical and tactical excellence but more importantly they play for each other, they are a team.

scalia on February 27, 2011 at 2:51 pm

actually that’s what LvG told Schweini to be, that’s why he get rid of Van Bommel. He’s going to pair Schweini with Kroos in midfield. Kroos will be more an attacking role, when Schweini got more a defensive role. But, i think LvG still cant make Schweini more disciplined in his play. He always make the same mistake, losing the ball easily in the danger area (then sometimes making stupid fouls trying to remedy the mistakes he made, ie red card in WC2006). If you follow him playing with Bayern & Germany, you could see this (ie the Uruguay goal at WC2010, the game against Inter, Mainz, Hoffenheim before). At first I was agree with LVG to pair Schweini & Kroos, but not anymore. Schweini is too error prone. So it’s safer to pair Schweini + Gustavo, or Kroos + Gustavo.

And Muller, is sometime too much of a forward than a midfielder. He need to drop back more, I think, so he could create space for robbery, an act as an outlet when robbery is heavily marked as just last night.

Another excellent analysis, ZM. Thanks.

Roberticus on February 27, 2011 at 4:16 pm

I think Schweini’s role differs slightly with the national team, in that Jurgen Loew’s side play a more counter-attacking game and their lines are more compact together.

Bayern, however, are trying to play a more expansive game and so Schweini’s team mates are more widely dispersed across the pitch and further from him when Bayern are in possession. Therefore he has to be more precise in his passing.

lefthog on February 28, 2011 at 1:32 am

Loew does not want to play a counter attacking game per design. Defending deep and playing for counter attacks was just result of having slow centre backs as well as going up early against England + Argentina and having to cope Spain’s Tiki Taka.

To scalia: Schweinsteiger is very disciplined in his play. He rarely gets caught out of position. He just basically had a bad game. Juergen Klopp and Lewandowski in particular did a great job not allowing him to play any forward passes.
A big culprit here was D. Pranjic (also to some extend T. Mueller) who was nearly invisible in the centre. When T. Kroos was subbed in Bayern was able to create much more pressure in the last twenty minutes.

scalia on February 28, 2011 at 3:43 pm

Lefthog, positioning yes, Schweini is good, but he has the tendency to lose the ball easily. Sloppy. He might be forgiven before when he play winger or AM, but no way when he play no 6. He has to learn not to do that again.

el tren on February 27, 2011 at 3:18 pm

The reason behind Schweinsteigers deep positioning could be to lure the dortmund players far up and use Schweinsteigers long passing on the wings to get the ball behind their midfield and use the opened space for quick attacks over Ribery and Robben.

But its ofc hard to put into practice when being 80 minutes behind as there wasnt a real reason for dortmund to keep pressing so high, which they didnt do in the 2nd half anymore.

Ran on February 27, 2011 at 4:38 pm

Perfect example of why I said they need to buy Mikel in the summer. He plays that deep role perfectly, and it would allow Schweinsteiger and Kroos (if he started that combination in the center of midfielder in-front of Mikel) to do all the box-to-box work that they would need to.

NiWa on February 28, 2011 at 9:23 am

Mikel is outstanding but Bayern really already his two players that can play this position if needed – Gustavo and Tymo. Bayern just needs a full back and a CB first so they can actually play in their natural positions.

Qwe on March 1, 2011 at 12:42 am

Why would Bayern buy Mikel when they just spent how many million on Gustavo? Of course, knowing Van Gaal, Gustavo will probably be played as a striker next season…

hwk on March 1, 2011 at 8:33 am

Where is this Mikel story coming from? Is this just an idea of a fan who put it on the internet (ZM) and now some people (here at ZM) really talk about it. Or has there been an insider at Bayern or Chelsea talking about a transfer?

I think it is the first situation and nothing like the rumours about some fullbacks seasons ago (and nothing happened).

But to bring this rumour into perspective: Why not going for Busquets? Mikel, yes good player, but Bayern should buy the best for the busquets-role. OR they go for Torsten Frings who may retire in the summer

I think Bayern bought Gustavo to make Hoffenheim weak, but a transfer like a veteran Frings would be a statement!

I think Van Gaal was trying to benifit from Schweini quick long passes(in the start of the attacking moves) to Robben and Ribery ,
He knew that passing the ball back to front as Bayern do usually with their patient build-up won’t help Robbrn and Ribery as they will be always find two or three men of Dortmund infront of them , So instead he thought the long quick passes would be a good solution .. it worked sometimes actually in the first half and Bayern was in good situations in the final third but they wasted it , and also Ribery being offside twice on recieving these long balls didn’t help..

Varun on February 27, 2011 at 7:37 pm

Bundesliga is very strong. Will have 4 UCL spots from 2013 season.

Dortmund is going to be a delight to watch next year in UCL.
Their play is precise, direct, lightning quick and daring.

They also seem to exploit the quick diagonal through balls to the flanks very often, its jaw dropping sometimes they way they open up teams that way and also how regularly they do so as well.

I agree i think the Bundesliga is far stronger and more entertaining than Seria A.
I think Dortmund will actually struggle in the championsleague because there pretty young and inexperienced, but who knows they could pull of a tottenham and do really well in their first season in the champs league for a while.

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They had some bad luck in the EL, but didn’t look that strong. I would not predict them to do very good in Europe next year. But who knows, this season the Bundesliga and next season some great games in the CL.

hwk on February 27, 2011 at 7:51 pm

That Schweinsteiger dropped between the centre backs was a result of his partner Pranjic, who is left footed and plays on the left of the two defensive midfielders.
In general the left was Schweinsteiger’s position (and Van Bommel on the right), and Schw’steiger dropped to the left of the two centre backs.
For me it is not the best way to open play from a full back position with the wrong foot (a right footer on the left), but for Schweinsteiger it may be the better position in contrast to work between the centre backs.

toothless agression on February 27, 2011 at 7:59 pm

i think bayern make things harder on themselves by playing their boring ineffective short passing game. specially in the bundesliga where all the teams play defensive or on the counter against them. they pass the ball way to much in defense and thus their attackers are always well marked because the opposition is given a lot of time to do so.

hwk on February 27, 2011 at 8:27 pm

For a game with the BVB involved it is normal to see “frantic” starting minutes. Dortmund’s plan is to pressure the opponent in the first 15 minutes like some infernal machine.
maybe Bayern should have fielded Gustavo or Tymoschtschuk as the deep midfielder / centre-half and move Schweinsteiger further up the pitch. maybe they should have switched the flanks, like somebody wrote (and if only for 20 minutes).

But to be honest, when it comes to point and the table, this game was not important. maybe important for the fans, the people, the motivation etc. but Bayern was far behind in the table weeks ago and every week Dortmund has one game less to play.

Cris on February 27, 2011 at 9:07 pm

Schweinsteiger playing deep was definitely the defining moment of the match. Allowed Dortmund to play their pressing game effectively and also held Bayern back.

However, I think playing Schweinsteiger that deep wasn’t necessarily as much a calculated from Van Gaal as it was a simply consequence of Dortmund’s pressing game. Klopp instructs his players to do that from minute 1 and they have done so against most teams this season and cut out their game completely as a result.

Bayern are not used to not being in control and when a side presses them like yesterday it disrupts their gameplan. I’ve always said it, Bayern still have to learn how to play without the ball. That is a major weakness of theirs.

pavel on February 28, 2011 at 3:22 am

We cannot discuss this game without mentioning stamina.

Dortmund dominated the game largely due to their advantage in terms of stamina. They closed down Bayern high up the field (esp Schweinsteiger), and Robben was marked by three men as soon as he got the ball. And of course, Dortmund’s strategy was so exhausting that in the last ten minutes a number of players could barely move. Dortmund scored a great victory, however Inter can take nothing from this game, since they lack the most important thing — stamina.

NiWa on February 28, 2011 at 9:31 am

I was impressed by Sahin once again. At the end of last season, Germany’s main Football magazine (“Kicker”) rightfully ranked him among the top of holding midfielders and ran a long interview with him. He talked about how impressive (first ranked) Schweinsteiger played and his ultimate goal to catch up to him one day. Fast forward to now, Schweinsteiger off-game aside, I’d say Sahin certainly has. Looking forward to see him play in the CL next year.

BenHasna on February 28, 2011 at 2:00 pm

From van Gaal’s comments it’s pretty clear he used Schweinsteiger in that deep role because he knew it would be key to somehow get around Dortmund’s pressing. Bayern thrive on possession and distribution from the centre and they certainly wouldn’t change that approach for such a game – but Dortmund apparently fields one of the most narrow 4-2-3-1 out there and has an excellent, aggressive game against the ball. So, van Gaal knew his deepest midfielder would be pressured all game and that’s why he chose Schweinsteiger over Gustavo or whoever available. He was most confident in Schweinsteiger being strong on the ball and not give the ball away easily – didn’t quite work out.
Not sure if he’s to blame for the decision to prefer Schweinsteiger over Gustavo who’s had some outstanding games in the centre for Hoffenheim (as well as Bayern, against Inter), but has indeed had space and time on the ball in most of his splendid games. Again, though I like him, not sure he’d have coped with Dortmund’s pressure very well. Bottom line is that Bayern’s always been vunlerable against aggressive sides and kind of lacks a plan B.

Cris on February 28, 2011 at 5:31 pm

I can’t imagine Van Gaal instructing them to do that because it completely takes Bayern out of their natural element. They outplayed Dortmund in the Hinrunde (still lost) because they were more proactive in their approach. Unless you have a set up like Inter last season inviting a pressing side like Dortmund is an inevitable disaster. Van Gaal is too experienced for that.

BenHasna on February 28, 2011 at 8:41 pm

Can’t quite follow – what would van Gaal not instruct them to do?

As for the game in the “Hinrunde”, well, wouldn’t say they outplayed Dortmund in that game, it was fairly even overall, but just a totally different game. Either side was much more passive back then early on, neither would attack very high up the pitch and in possession be happy to move the ball around calmly. Part of the reason for that was the different situation going into the game. Back then, neither side was totally confident how good they truly were and were happy to feel each other out a bit, whereas this time around each team wanted to not only win three points, but to make a clear statement about who’s the best team in the country and who plays the best football – and both sides would therefore play their very own football indeed. And that played into Dortmund’s hands big time.

soccerdadof4 on March 1, 2011 at 2:25 am

great game!

mohammad jordan on March 1, 2011 at 9:04 am

no thoughts on the role of grosskreutz and gotze to double team with the full backs to nullify robben and ribery? I thought that was an important tactical aspect because very often Bayern depend on those two to create something when things are not going well for them but we saw how the ball went under Robbens foot near the end which shows that he was taken out of the game completely, ribery did better.

Lancelot on March 1, 2011 at 9:10 am

I would like to hear some opinions on Barrios’ role. Though being the lone striker he was often present in the midfield (e.g. Dortmunds second goal resulted from a long Barrios run). Also he was often almost in the same zone as Lewandowsky, thus he wasn’t easy to be marked by the centre backs and/or Schweinsteiger in his new sweeper role. I guess Klopp wanted Barrios to play as false nine, in order to use his speed against the rather slow players Badstuber and Tymo.

Dominic on March 1, 2011 at 4:00 pm

“He was beaten in the air seemingly every time Barrios came in front of him – he only won 5 out of 14 challenges in the game, which for a central midfielder isn’t too bad, but for an auxiliary centre-back is a big problem.”

When I was watching the match I found it was Lewandowski constantly beating Schweinsteiger in the air, not Barrios. Lewandowski in that AM role provides something different than Kagawa or Gotze. He is bigger and more physical, no way Schwein only wins 5 headers if either of those two were playing in the AM role and he probably would have had more freedom passing the ball if a less physical player was the one pressing Schweinsteiger. Not saying Lewandowski is a better player than Kagawa or Gotze just that he offers something different and versus Bayern he was probably the best choice.